In one sequence, a panoply of penises in a variety of sizes, shapes and hues fill the frame as part of a larger story in which Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) explains the origins and development of her nymphomania. The narrative device in which Joe dully details her erotic escapades is often stilted, occasionally compelling.

The film opens mysteriously. As water drops from a rusty pipe, the camera pans across a gloomy urban landscape to reveal a woman lying battered in an alley. A good Samaritan named Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard) offers to call an ambulance. When she refuses, he takes her into his home, cleans her wounds and settles her into a twin bed to recover. She introduces herself as Joe, then sleeps fitfully. When awake, she is intent on recounting how she got to this state.

Some scenes are illuminating, such as when young Joe (played in flashback by Stacy Martin) describes her carnal awakening. She first feels her nascent power over men as a nubile teen having sex on a train with random passengers.

Seligman interjects with oddly intellectual commentary on subjects such as the wonders of Bach's fugues. Von Trier would like us to think he's attempting a serious examination of sexual voracity. But it seems like an exercise in pretension. If he's intent on probing the psyche, heart (or other organs) of a nymphomaniac, he fails to illuminate what fully drives Joe, and doesn't seem to have a solid grasp of female sexuality.

Nymphomaniac is a peculiar, downbeat and decidedly male view of a woman's appetites, not an honest assessment of her multifarious desires.

Scenes of Joe at her father's sickbed are prolonged and, in one gratuitous sequence, off-putting. Meant to be moving, they demonstrate the only occasion where Joe shows any strong emotion. Martin is such an inexpressive actress, however, that her wooden performance leaves the audience unmoved. Her bland bond with her first sexual partner (Shia LaBeouf) is additionally undercut by LaBeouf's sketchy British accent.

Most of the graphic sex feels labored and rarely is arousing. (Porn industry body doubles were seamlessly blended with actors' physiques). When von Trier intercuts the sex with Seligman's inflated dialogue, the efforts ring hollow and grandiose. There are bright spots: Joe's discussion of her profound loneliness sheds some light on her need for a revolving door of male conquests.

Since this is the first of a two-part film, further elucidation could emerge when Nymphomaniac:Vol. II opens in theaters April 4.

Von Trier's effort to explore a woman's libido in a two-part film is intriguingly ambitious. And the notion of a woman drawn unemotionally to multiple partners to fulfill a seemingly unquenchable need is compelling. Joe is both victor and victim. We see her sense of power as master of her domain, but also her powerlessness in the realm of emotions.

It's debatable, however, whether von Trier is the best filmmaker to take on this complex subject matter. At least in this rambling first volume, he doesn't delve much beyond the surface.

Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1 is an exhausting, but hardly exhaustive, treatise that seeks to be provocative but is too often merely preposterous.